


sing come twilight

by SparkleMoose



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ableism, Elemental Magic, Fictional Religion & Theology, Galahd (Final Fantasy XV), Galahd Has Like No Canon So. My City Now, Galahdian Culture (Final Fantasy XV), M/M, Magical Tattoos, Or That Galahdian King AU I Took Down Only To Rewrite and Repost, Physical Disability, Politics, Racism, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:02:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21983359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparkleMoose/pseuds/SparkleMoose
Summary: Quinn wakes up having had his soul merged together with that of a Galahdian King.He is displeased to say the least.(Or that one fic where while Galahd hasn't had an Official King since it fell to Lucian rule but that hasn't stopped either Ramuh or Leviathan from Choosing a king. And it's not like they're going to let their king die.)
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 136





	sing come twilight

**Author's Note:**

> this is a rewrite of 'come away o human child'

The truth, Quinn thinks, of his existence, is an odd one. For he is certain that he died and yet he breathes still, his heartbeat thrumming in his ears and Quinn is suddenly undoubtedly sure that he is alive.

How? Is the first question that crosses his mind. How could he have possibly survived when he remembers death when he remembers -bullets shooting please no he can’t die- when he remembers the building he had been in collapsing and a metal beam piercing through his skin.

Why does he think he’s been shot? Quinn wonders, why does he think that he’s been shot?

He hadn’t been shot.

Had he?

Quinn’s brow furrows and he opens his eyes to daylight. Shoving himself up on his elbows he ignores the stiff pain that comes from having been in one position for too long and takes in his surroundings. Quinn is in a clearing, surrounded by trees and bushes. Wildflowers that he doesn’t recognize bloom underneath him, the blossoms a shade of deep blue and despite everything Quinn smiles at the sight of them. They are beautiful certainly, but they won’t give him answers.

A gunshot sounds, breaking the tranquillity of the moment. A gunshot sounds and Quinn scrambles to his feet, eyes darting around as he tries to figure out where the gunshot had come from.

A shot rings again. The wind around him picks up and suddenly Quinn knows that it came from the west.

Quinn turns northeast, and despite knowing the amount of pain he’ll be in later, he runs.

* * *

Here is what Quinn realizes as he runs. One is that either his legs had gotten smaller or that he’s gotten slower. The second is that the hair whipping past him as he runs cannot be his. His hair is brown, the same as his fathers, his hair is the shade of the dirt beneath his feet and the fire red braid that grabs his attention as he stumbles to a stop causes the air in his lungs to freeze.

That’s not his hair.

It can’t be, not unless someone dyed it while he was -dead, dying, bleeding out, Ramuh save his people please- sleeping.

He can’t have died. It’s impossible for one to return from the dead.

Right?

Something life grief settles in his bones and around him the wind that had run alongside him stills.

Move, the wind says.

Quinn moves and a spear lodges itself into the ground where he had been. Spinning on his heel, Quinn’s eyes widen as he watches metal figures he swears he had never seen before march toward him. Their red eyes glow bright even in the light of day and something in Quinn recoils at the sight of them.

They want to kill me, Quinn thinks, shifting into a position that feels familiar to him but he swears he was never taught, What did I do?

The machines come closer and Quinn suddenly recognizes them.

MTs, he realizes, They can’t be real.

A metal figure raises it’s gun and Quinn rolls to the side a second before it fires.

MTs, he thinks, again disbelief colouring his thoughts, What the fuck?

Letting instinct take over as another MT darts toward Quinn with its blades raised Quinn raises a hand and lightning shoots forward striking the MT in the chest and reducing it to ash. He doesn’t have time to be shocked, doesn’t have time to let his thoughts linger on the shock of power running through his veins. Instead he pulls at it it, as the other MT readies its gun and when it shots Quinn doesn’t move.

Purple blossoms fall out of the gun. The MT tries to fire again and more blossoms fall from the weapon.

Quinn, all too aware of how goddamn weird this is, laughs a bit hysterically before reaching out with his minds eye and grasping the unknown energy in it.

He thinks of deep roots and still earth.

Bury, he thinks, and watches in horror as roots shoot up from the earth and impale the MT multiple times before dragging the MT dissipates. The roots slink back down to their slumber and the earth moves to bury the metal of its armour.

Run, the wind whispers again.

Quinn stumbles.

He runs anyway.

* * *

From beneath the shelter of a tree, Quinn finds himself falling to his knees and vomiting blood. He retches the contents of an empty stomach up alongside dark, dried up clots of blood. Heaving, Quinn opens eyes he hadn’t realized he closed and finds himself staring at bullets. Wide eyes needlessly take count of the bullets he had just vomited up. Ten, he thinks shock and disgust warring with horror as drags himself to his feet to stumble away and find some sort of shelter, Ten bullets.

I was shot ten times.

Another hysterical laugh bubbles up in Quinn and he forces it down and tries to think rationally. Plan, he thinks, I need a plan.

Step one: find shelter, he makes a list in his head, step two-

Well.

He’ll deal with that later.

* * *

Within a cave, a boy sleeps.

The rainbow quartz bead in his hair glows brightly.

* * *

Quinn dreams. He dreams of dying, of the building collapse and he dreams of an Old Man and Woman.

Sky Father, Mother of All, he addresses the man and woman respectively and does not know what he does so. The woman grins her teeth like those of a shark.

_Oh, Little King,_ her voice is the screams of the drowned, _You truly have no idea why you are here._

_I am not a king,_ Quinn says and yet he feels there is a truth in her words. As though one day he will be.

Quinn wonders how that can be. 

Visions of another life come to him, a life cut short in the same moments his was. Not of an accident, rather, this life was taken cruelly and without remorse.

Ten bullets, Quinn thinks, Ten shots that didn’t miss.

The Sky Father rumbles, his voice like thunder and full of sorrow.

_Little Chosen,_ the Sky Father speaks and Quinn feels compelled to listen, _Do you remember?_

_Yes,_ Quinn says as tears prick the back of his eyes.

He doesn’t know why he’s crying and yet he does. The priests and priestesses that raised him are dead, he would have met the same fate. He saw them fall protecting him. Is he really worthy? Quinn wonders, Is he really worthy of being protected?

There’s a sound of waves crashing and rain falls in the dream.

_Do not doubt_ , the Mother hisses _, Do not doubt our Choice._ _You are ours. That alone makes you worth more than you know._ There is a possessive note in her voice, one that reminds Quinn both of an angered mother and the battle cry of shieldmaiden.

_Who am I_? Quinn asks them

_Both King and Commoner,_ the Sky Father says, _Priest and Not. You are Quinn and Pax both. Your souls are pieces of the same whole._

_What is your name?_ The Mother asks her shark grin back.

_Quinn,_ he says at last, _Quinn Furia._

The Mother laughs and the father smiles.

Quinn wakes up.

* * *

Here is the thing; it is easier to accept things in a dream. It is easier to be brave and valiant when you have nothing to fear.

It is easier to be noble in a dream.

Quinn has never been very noble, and now, with a host of new memories and a new skill set, he raises his aching body from cave floor and swears vigorously as he hits the ground again as his knee gives out.

He hates this. Hates this new world, hates that he knows this world is doomed to Darkness and Horror and most of all Quinn hates that his body fucking hates him.

In an ideal world, Quinn would have a day to rest before having to walk unaided once more. In an ideal world, Quinn might have those who would help him through his day. 

This is not an ideal world, and when Quinn forces himself back to his feet, he curses himself for overexerting his body yesterday.

It seems, Quinn thinks dryly, that no matter what body his soul inhabits, the body will always be a little bitch.

Desperately looking around for something that might resemble a walking stick or cane Quinn almost slams his head into the walls as he remembers that he has magic.

Holding his hand out, Quinn thinks of oak and sturdy wood. Slowly but surely, a staff rises from the ground. Made of oak and solid enough to giving a good thrashing to anyone who dare mess with him, Quinn can’t help but grin at it despite the exhaustion taking over.

Just another nap, he thinks, sliding down the cave wall and clutching the staff like it’s a lifeline, Just a nap.

* * *

Quinn wakes up.

Quinn wakes up and it takes a moment for him to remember the past few days worth of events. Groaning, Quinn uses his staff to heave himself to his feet and hobbles out of the cave. His body still aching and his left knee tingling and going numb.

That’s not good, Quinn knows from experience that it’s usually a signal that his knee is about to slide about it in it’s socket and send him tumbling forward but there isn’t much he can do about it. He has no brace to help him here. Nothing that would stop it from happening so Quinn continues forward.

It’s just his luck that he makes it to an Outpost before his leg decides to fuck him up.

He would have fallen on his face had he not grabbed his staff with his empty hand in time to steady himself as best he could and pull himself back up from where his legs had buckled.

There had been a shout of surprise from behind him, and when Quinn regains his bearings he turns to look and sees a blond who can’t be more than twenty two.

“You alright?” The blond asks, her teeth worrying her button lip as she studies Quinn, “Almost took a bad tumble there, didn’tcha?”

Quinn somehow manages a laugh.

“Yeah,” he says, “Be the icing on top of this shitty week.”

“You look like you’ve had it rough alright,” the woman says, “How old are you boy?”

Quinn blinks. “Seventeen?” His answer sounds more like a guess but the woman seems to believe him.

“But Six you’re young aren’t you? Where are your folks if you don’t mind me asking?”

“You’re not much older,” Quinn retorts, before deflating as memories of fire and corpses fill his mind, “My parents- they’re dead.”

“Oh.” The answer seems to quiet the girl for a moment before she nods to herself and it’s when she smiles that Quinn realizes that he’s talking to Cindy Aurum.

Fuck me, he thinks.

“You’re coming with me,” she announces, “We can always do with some more help around the shop and you look like you could use a place to stay.”

“I would rather not,” Quinn says, but knows that there is only so much his traitor of a body can do.

“I’ll throw in free food.”

“I’m coming,” Quinn says immediately, suddenly realizing he has no idea how long it’s been since he last ate.

Cindy grins at him. 

“Thought you might.”

* * *

It’s when he’s in the tow truck with Cindy does Quinn remember his braid. He tugs at it, feeling the weight of the rainbow quartz attached to it.

Am I worthy? Quinn wonders again, thinking of all those that died protecting him while he went under another name.

No, he decides. He isn’t worthy.

Slowly, he unravels the braid, taking out the bead first and stashing it in his pocket before he takes out the rest of it and redoing it in a style that will tell everyone he’s a Priest but won’t give any clues as to what Quinn actually is.

“I thought braids were important to you Galahdians,” Cindy says as she catches Quinn redoing his braid in a different style, “What’s that one you’re making mean?”

“My parents were devoted to Ramuh and Leviathan,” he says and it’s not a lie, “They raised me to follow in their footsteps, now that they’re gone, I might as well start acting in their stead.”

“They didn’t take an oath of chastity?”

“Some do. My parents didn’t.”

“You get to choose?”

“Of course, The Tidemother teaches the importance of choice and choosing after all.”

“What about your bead? Don’t they have a special meaning?”

“They tell people what Clan your from,” Quinn answers, “Each Clan is assigned a colour, and the families within those Clans all have beads under that colour.”

“What’s your bead mean?”

“It’s a priesthood thing,” Quinn not quite lies and changes the subject as he sees the Hammerhead come into view. “That where we’re going?”

“How’d ya guess?”

“The Hammerhead is hard to mistake for anything else.

Cindy laughs.

“You’re alright, ya know that Quinn?”

“Thanks.”


End file.
